Ice!

As many of you may know, on the weekend before Christmas, Toronto (and much of Eastern Canada) was hit by an Ice Storm. Not as outrightly violent as it sounds, an ice storm doesn't actually involve large chunks of ice being flung around by high velocity winds. Instead, it's the result of several days of rain falling in subzero temperatures, solidifying on contact. When this happens over several days, as it did in Toronto, the results are absolutely stunning. A world encased in a thick layer of shimmering ice. Unfortunately, the results are just as devastating as they are incredible.

Ice forming on the trees and signposts of downtown Toronto on the evening of Sunday Dec 22nd, 24hours in.

As all of our power lines are underground and the heat generated by the buildings prevented too much of the ice from freezing, the the downtown core was hit much less hard by the storm than were the suburbs, where the lines are exposed. Down here, our primary concern became, not surviving subzero temperatures without power or heat, but avoiding the massive sheets of ice falling off skyscraper windows as they got too heavy to stay - utterly terrifying, but not lethal if you stayed out of the financial district. With roads becoming progressively more passable, though slowgoing with many of the lights still out and some trees still down on the streets, I decided to head out Scarborough-way on the Tuesday for some Christmas Eve cookie deliveries to friends and family in some of the regions hardest hit. I also took the opportunity to head into the Rouge Valley for a short, but stunning - and spectacularly cold - hike. Below are some of the pictures I managed to snap in between staring around me in awe and trying to keep my hands from freezing off.

Icicles on a tree in Toronto's Rouge Valley, 3 days after the storm.

Flash frozen field buds.

Not even the conifers were immune.

Perhaps one of my favourite pictures from my hike, flash frozen wild berries 3 days in.

By the time I made my way out that way, over 48 hours after the storm had ended, approximately 200,000 households were still without power, down from a peak of 300,000 on the Sunday, and the devastation wrought by the storm was still clearly visible - tree limbs littering lawns and lying on houses and cars, whole neighbourhoods frozen in without heat or power and everything encrusted. Night was probably eeriest, with everything entirely blacked out and no way to determine what was ahead of you.

Tree limbs litter the street outside my old house. This was nowhere near the worst I saw. Many of the limbs landed on houses, cars and power lines - the latter causing fires. Nothing brings home the subtle power of nature like a massive tree split directly in half by rain.

As temperatures fell to lower than -16 C, many people were left scrambling to find ways to stay warm and cook their food. Those with old fashioned fireplaces certainly lucked out in this regard. Unfortunately, with approximately 45,000 households still without power on Boxing Day (day 5 without), the absence of these in many newer homes resulted in a smattering of deaths across the city from fires and carbon monoxide poisoning as people brought their barbecues inside in an attempt to keep warm.

To give some perspective, the population of Toronto is estimated to lie around 2.7 million, and each household is estimated to hold an average of 2.5 people. This means that, at the peak, more than 1/4 of the city's population was without power.

Bent, but not broken, young trees bowing under the weight of all of the ice.

While the effects of the ice storm could easily have 'ruined Christmas', and they were certainly devastating, ruining many peoples' Christmas plans, one of the nicest things to see was how so many neighbours, friends, families, and even strangers, came together to help each other weather the storm. A big thank you! to all of the hydro workers from Toronto and the surrounding districts who worked tirelessly throughout their holidays to restore service. As of today, 10 days after the storm, almost everyone is back in their homes and only 100 people are still without power (many because of tree limbs and power lines falling after the ice had melted). Overall, I think the city weathered the storm pretty well. It's always good to remember, however, just how powerful Mother Nature can be. So, with 2013 at an end and 2014 just beginning, I want to encourage you all to be prepared and wish you all a Very Happy New Year! 

An icy sunset outside my grandparents' house. 

Here's to putting to rest what was an awesome 2013 and welcoming a (hopefully even more amazing) 2014! Love to you all!
Ally

More of Toronto: Wandering the Rouge

Okay, so maybe I'm just partial to the area that I grew up in, but to my mind, Scarborough really just is one of the prettiest parts of Toronto. In addition to taking my friend out to visit the Bluffs, we also went for a bit of a wander in the Rouge Valley, my favourite place to soak in some much needed nature as a kid.

A hiker on one of the meadow trails in the Rouge Valley.

At 40km square, encompassing the Rouge River Watershed that runs the length of the Scarborough-Pickering border and stretching from Oak Ridges Moraine in the north to Lake Ontario in the south, Rouge Park was Canada's first National Park, and now has the honour of becoming our first Urban National Park. It's also home to Canada's largest wetland at Rouge Beach Park (known to locals as The Estuary) and a number of national historic sites.

A view of the valley from one of the hill tops. Taken in mid-September when the colours were only just beginning to hint at a change.

While I love the Rouge year round, my favourite time to visit is in the fall when it truly becomes apparent just how the area got it's name. With this year's extended summer, the colours were only beginning to hint at a change when we were there. Fortunately for everyone else, that means the fall colours are still in bloom - and I'd definitely suggest that everyone take advantage of the lovely weather we've been having to enjoy them! 

Rouge Beach Park, where the Rouge River meets Lake Ontario. Favourite local fishing spot and summertime hangout.

One of the best things about the Rouge is that there is something for everybody, meandering valley-walks, relaxing beaches and more strenuous uphill climbs. There's even tobogganing for the kids in the winter. For more info on Rouge Park, conservation, how to get there and the view points and hiking trails within it, check out the official Rouge Park and Toronto City websites.

My favourite part. The Rouge Beach Estuary, part of Canada's largest wetland. This place is beautiful in the summer, but even more fun in the winter when it freezes over and local kids clear the ice for some neighbourhood games of hockey.

For those who don't live in the east end of the city, never fear, the whole Greater Toronto Area is dotted with (admittedly smaller) parks like the Rouge. Some of my favourites are out near Burlington and Hamilton. I find the aptly named Rattlesnake Point to be especially lovely.

A Toronto Gem: The Scarborough Bluffs

It always shocks me how tourists often seem to know so much more about what there is to see and do in a city they're visiting than the locals do. Maybe it's that locals miss out on reading the guidebooks, or maybe it's just that we get so caught up in our day-to-day lives and the mystique of travel that we forget to stop every once in a while and appreciate what's around us. In Toronto especially, I think we also get tripped up by the fact that the rest of our great country has such stunning landscape on offer (particularly in the west) and assume that anything we could have must pale in comparison. While we don't have any Rocky Mountains here, that doesn't mean our landscape isn't just as stunning (we are, after all, home to the Niagara Falls).

One of the estuarine inlets at the base of the bluffs. They'll full of fish, frogs and other life forms.

Proof that some good things do, indeed, come from Scarborough, perhaps one of my favourite oft-missed spots in the city are the Scarborough Bluffs - a 15km long escarpment running along the northern coast of Lake Ontario that reaches up 90m (or 25 stories) at it's highest point. Wonderful to visit in any season (though the beach can get quite crowded in the summer), I recently had the chance to explore them again with a friend who was visiting from Scotland in early September.  

A view of the bluffs from the beach.

The views of the bluffs are just stunning - but no more so than is suggested by its history. The bluffs are what remain of the eroded shoreline of Glacial Lake Iroquois, which covered an enlarged area of Lake Ontario and sat at the base of a large northern ice sheet during the last ice age (approximately 13,000 years ago). Surprisingly, the bluffs actually represent the last remaining geological record of this period in North America, making them incredibly important geologically. Unfortunately, due to their sandy nature, the bluffs are eroding fast - at a rate of about one meter per year. This isn't all bad though, one of Toronto's major attractions, the Toronto Islands, were actually formed by erosional deposits from the bluffs that were swept westward into the lake during a large storm in 1858! 

Looking out toward Lake Ontario. We were lucky enough to be there when it was warm.

There are a number of places from which you can enjoy the Bluffs, but two of my favourite (and two of the most easily accessible) are Bluffers Park at the base of Brimley Road and the Scarborough Bluffs Park above it east of Midland Avenue. Parking at Bluffers is free Monday-Friday before 5pm. To get there using public transit, take the number 12 or 12B Kingston Road bus to Brimley and then walk the 2km (10mins) south to the park. Just remember that the route in heads down, so you'll have quite the uphill on the walk back - it's definitely worth it though!

Toronto Treats: Exploring the City with Tasty Tours

Mmm, truffles. How can you resist them?

One of the things I`ve been up to since getting back to Toronto has been joining Tasty Tours Toronto as one of the guide staff. Tasty Tours is an nifty little company offering walking tours of Toronto that focus mostly on the deliciousness available at Toronto's bakeries and chocolatiers.

Some of the wonderfully delicious treats on offer on our chocolate tour.
This is quite possibly my favourite stop, with chocolates ranging in flavour from lavender and rose to chipotle, tequila and lime. 

Tours are kept small to maximize your enjoyment and run every, or every other, weekend depending on the season. Regular tours include the Kensington Sweets Tour and the Trinity-Bellwoods Chocolate Tour. People keep asking which is my favourite or which they should try first and, honestly, I can't decide. My answer? Do both!

One of the customer favourites on the sweets tour. Know what they are? Good. Then you probably want one :).

Taste testing is offered at all of the stops along the route and, even if, like me, you're a dessert-o-phile, you will find something new and awesome that you've never tried before or an excellently made well-loved favourite at every stop.

One of the chocolate truffles from our sweets tour.
This one was pumpkin spice, but you'll get to choose your flavour.

While the focus of the tour is mostly on the desserts, we don't skimp on the historical info either. Little tidbits about the neighbourhood, sweet making techniques and how to properly eat desserts abound. The guides are all knowledgeable (yeah, yeah, I know, tooting my own horn - but I did do my undergrad thesis on why we evolved to love sweetness and how cultures use and perceive it differently around the world!) and the neighbourhoods themselves are wonderfully unique. Plus, you don't have to be a tourist to enjoy them. Most of the tours are actually made up of locals who just want to better get to know the city and treats available in it!

I bet those who have been to Asia can identify some of these!
Just to keep up some of the suspense, I'll avoid telling which tour this stop is from.

Interested? Check us out at TastyToursToronto.com. Private tours are available for those who can't make the regular ones or, those who just want to spend some quality sweet time with their friends. Special thematic tours are also offered during dessert-heavy seasons such as Christmas and Valentine's, and tours are half-price for those going with a friend during their birth month.

Don't trust me to be impartial? Check out some of our excellent reviews on TripAdvisor.

Happy Eating!

Toronto!

I can't lie, part of the reason I have been so slow in updating now that I am back home in Toronto is that the prospect of trying to summarize 6 months and 7000+ photos worth of travel, flavours and experiences into a coherent body of blog posts is a singularly daunting one.  I'd also be lying, however, if I said that was the only reason. It's likely that an equal measure of my reluctance to post comes from the fact that being home after so long away always reminds me of just how much I love Toronto - it's crazy pace; quirky neighbourhoods; incredible mix of cultures; access to great art, drama and dance; the food; and, of course, my friends and family. While I love travelling and experiencing new cultures, sometimes it's nice just to soak up a little of home. It helps, of course, that I have a stunning view of the city from just outside my bedroom and loads to get done while I'm here. 

The lovely morning view of the Toronto skyline from the balcony off my parents' den (the floor of which I am currently camping on).

Though the classic reaction of all Torontonians to visitors stating how much they've enjoyed the city always seems to run along the lines of "Really?! Why???". I'm here to report that there are just so many reasons. Don't believe me? Head out to check it out yourself. In the spring, summer, and early fall, we have cultural and art festivals nearly every weekend. In the winter, we have theatre, Broadway shows, comedy, ballets and operas to keep us warm. We have access to nearly every food imaginable, decent museums, a plethora of unique neighbourhoods, wonderful parks, thousands of activities, a great lake, 4 distinct seasons, access to incredible nature not too far away and stunning foliage in the autumn. Really, what's not to love? While I'll unfortunately likely not have enough time to do too many Toronto-themed posts with the travel backlog I'm under. I definitely recommend a visit. And for all those of you who live here but claim not to like it, I encourage you to try something new, explore a new area or test out a new type of food. Who knows, you may just fall in love with it too!

A streetcar, possibly one of my favourite features of Toronto's transportation system, on Queen West. 

For awesome ideas on where to go when you visit, what to eat, current events or new fun things to try in and around Toronto, check out the super handy and awesome BlogTO.